camp HTC.

did you ever go to camp as a kid?

i LOVED camp. i went for the first time when i was 10. it was a week long and one of the best weeks of my little life. i went to camp every summer and worked at 3 different camps throughout college. it always seemed like a slice of heaven on earth to me.

since it's been ages since i've been to camp and i have a group of friends who are pretty much my ride or dies it was only natural that we take a weekend and go to "camp." i put camp in quotes because it was actually just kicking my parents out of their lake house for a weekend and making our own version of camp. yep, we're 30 year olds who created our own camp because delayed adolescence is a real thing.

we met on friday after work to make the 3 hour trek up to small-town minnesota. 

just six fully grown adults and a wonderdog ready for camp! 

we packed a LOT into less than 48 hours. 

my mom is the cutest- she made this! 

breakfast views. LOVE. 

official camp tank tops...HTC! 

paddleboating...wonder looks calm in the pic but was whining to beat the band.

stand up paddle board races. kenya vs USA.

friendship bracelet making on the back deck. 

sometimes you just gotta take a 20 minute power nap at camp.

horseshoe tournament.

look at that form.

just the camp activity director and her dog.

grilling on the pontoon!

fishing. he literally caught nothing.

pontoon hangs. 

this was actually terrifying. never been a fan of the underdog push.

cheers to a killer weekend!

and we didn't even get pictures of the bonfire, blokus games while catching some of the olympics, the run into town to get the forgotten milk, the pizza picnic lunch, our Sunday morning sermon from our "camp pastor" or the claw game my parents have in their basement that the boys were obsessed with. 

camp is good for the soul.

xo

sweaty together.

holy hannah it's been a hot minute since we've had some screen time, faithful storiesofagirl readers. totes my fault.
i hope your summer has been amazing so far.
it's almost august. WUT?

my summer has been a blur. a very busy blur.
there was one event that took up a good chunk of my time. i worked with my team for the past 14 months to put on an event on the national mall. it was called together 2016. it was a gathering calling a million people to the mall, the only agenda was Jesus.

pretty rad.

i arrived in DC a week before the event to finish getting all of my ducks in a row.
as the week wore on, the temperature climbed higher and higher.
by the time we got to saturday we knew we were in for a scorcher.

the day dawned a sticky 80-something degrees with the promise of reaching triple digits. after a quick breakfast and short team meeting i set off to the far side of washington monument to the volunteer tent, my home for the day.

in a matter of minutes i had volunteers arriving to help. the next four hours went in a blink. there were stressful moments, there were laughs, there was a lot of sweat, and there were a whole lot of people who had turned up to worship Jesus. then things took a bit of a turn. as we were approaching midday there seemed to be a steady stream of people who ended up in the volunteer tent in a vain effort to cool off; sitting by the fans, grabbing ice from the coolers for the back of their necks and looking about one minute away from passing out or throwing up.

now the volunteer tent was quite removed from the main area of the gathering so i was missing out on pretty much everything that was happening on the other side of the monument. i've seen footage and it's incredible. at one point the whole crowd is down on their knees in silence in prayer. another point the mall is shaking in worship. artists and speakers were crying onstage as they felt the holy spirit move.
it.was.insane.

being removed i also missed the fact that people were overwhelming the medical tents onsite. hundreds of people were flocking to the tents in hopes of finding some respite from the intense heat and some cold water before they fainted. the few people i had huddled in the volunteer tent were a fraction of the masses in the other tents. the tent that we had set up for our partners was even opened up for those struggling with the temps as an oasis to cool off.

and then we got the news. they were shutting the event down early. the national parks service said the heat was too much and for safety reasons we were not allowed to continue.

so we shut it down. 5 hours early.
not our plan. not what we wanted. not how the day was supposed to go.
but there was so much beauty in that day it almost didn't matter.

there was a commissioning video shown before people left the mall. it was never about coming to the mall. it was always about going from the mall.

so grateful to be a part of this. 

xo

rooting for you.

oh hey there all you bands trying to make it!
i give you mad props. touring isn't always glamorous (especially if you're rolling 15 passenger van style), it's not easy to make a living as an artist, and i applaud you believing in your art enough to give it an honest-to-goodness try.
while i will give you all the kudos in the world for beating the pavement and wanting it so bad you've given up almost everything to be on that stage, here are a couple of key things to endear me to you as the opening band to the band i came to see (correct me if i'm wrong stories of a girl readers):

• tell me some short stories. assume, as the opener, that no one in the room is overly familiar with your music. i know you want to play as many songs as humanly possible in your 20 minute set but cutting out one song and telling two entertaining stories (maybe one about a song's inspiration and one as a glimpse into your personal life) will go a long way to making me remember you. especially if you're funny. 
• be jazzed about the main act. we are jazzed about them and we want you to love them as much as we love them. and we'll assume that you have great taste in music if you seem excited to be touring with them. because then we clearly have the same taste in music, duh.
• be confident but not cocky. you were asked to open this tour or show...play like you should be there. but don't forget, even if you're fantastic, cockiness is a major turn-off. someone please pass this message along to kanye. 

that's it. it really doesn't take much and i will buy a shirt or album at the end of the show. or at the very least i will spotify you the following day, fall in love with your album, and pay to see you when you roll through town in 4 months on your smaller, headlining tour in the dank bar down the street.
good luck, i really am rooting for you! 

xo

hope for the broken.

as you know, i work for an evangelistic association. due to the events we put on we get to meet a lot of really cool ministries and non-profits who are working to make the world a better place.

one of the ministries i learned of through work and have gotten the pleasure of getting to know it's founder is hope for the broken. 

hope for the broken exists to bring hope into your dark places. everyone struggles with something; maybe for you it's depression or anxiety. maybe it's feeling you aren't good enough. there is Hope and there's a Light that can cut right through that darkness and hope for the broken is shining that light.

meg, the non-profits founder, feels called to be a rescuer of the broken, a bringer of light, after knowing the darkness personally and walking through some tough stuff with those close to her.

one of the ways that hope for the broken raises funds to support their work is through selling some pretty rad pieces of jewelry. i have a lantern of hope in antique brass (they also have it in antique black and antique silver) and it has become one of my favorite pieces to wear! it has a verse on the bottom and is a great reminder that there is a light in our darkness.

my actual necklace. love it. 

added note to any those who are thinking about ordering it:
the lantern is a good weight and size (probably about an inch and a half tall) and the chain it's on is long and thin without being too delicate! it lays really nicely against your chest.

okay, now that you're sold on ordering one for yourself, get it here!

and never fear fellas, there's a necklace for you on the site too, check it.

xo

when you get turned into a meme.

you know how you have those friends that you have been friends with for wayyyyy too long? the ones who know all of the embarrassing stories and have pictures of you during your awkward stages in life?

i have one of those friends.

the other day she found a disgusting old picture of me and got a little creative with it. she did what any good friend would do and turned it into a meme. she took all the tragic stories of my past (all centered around music, of course) and made it into a meme that actually makes me shed tears from laughing. they're hilarious. i look so gross and my life has been beautifully disappointing and i'm beginning to think it's probably better that way. certainly more entertaining, anyway.

as much as i feel like these shouldn't be on the internet for my own personal self-esteem reasons they are just too good to not share. and because i'm too vain to let you think i look like that on a regular basis here's a bit of context to the picture: it was taken one morning days into a music festival after i had just woken up. i was seriously sunburned and puffy, was averaging a handful of hours of sleep each night because i was "camping" in a stuffy astro mini-van, and also sometimes my face just makes that face. if you've read this blog from the beginning, you'll recognize these stories, most of them have gotten their own post.

seriously, i'm dying just looking at them again. and there are more. more stories of my life not turning out how i envisioned it would being paired with what is quite possibly the worst picture of me ever. some day i'll post a round two ;) 

xo

Jesus in the mainstream.

i grew up steeped in the christian music industry. and by that i mean i listened to pretty much only christian music and i loved every minute of it. all my cd's were christian bands and there was a christian radio station (shout out to z100) i could pull in in my bedroom. score.

i still think there are some fantastic christian bands out there still but i have expanded my listening tastes a bit in the past decade and i love discovering songs that are straight-up Jesus music hiding in plain sight. and i'm not even talking the bands that i rave over all the time; switchfoot, needtobreathe, colony house, mat kearney, etc. these are bands and artists who are regular plays on the billboard charts and top 40 radio. 

take a listen and let it feed your soul. 

the fray: be still

tori kelly: hallow

justin bieber: purpose

mumford and sons: awake my soul

selena gomez: nobody

onerepublic: mercy

xo

where the light shines through.

today switchfoot announced the name and release date of their next album. it's album 10 for the san diego boys and it's called where the light shines through and it's releasing on july 8th.

they filled their social media outlets with the news and posted about it on their website. i saw it when i got to work this morning and had to take two minutes to watch the trailer and read the note from jon. i legit got teary-eyed because it's beautiful and i questioned why i watched it while sitting in the middle of the office because i know switchfoot gives me all the feels. if you're feeling like you can handle a good kind of punch to the heart, check it out.

and you can roll your eyes and be all, "sara just really never stops talking about switchfoot and homegirl needs to expand her interests a bit," but i just want to let you know that i'm not the only one who loves them. and it's not even just regular, everyday fangirls...it's other artists who have, in some way or another, expressed their love and appreciation for the band in some way or another.

exhibit a: 

joshua dun from twenty one pilots's instagram. notice that bio line? yeah, switchfoot lyrics from their song where i belong off of vice verses. 

exhibit b: 

colony house's instagram. caption for this photo is switchfoot lyrics from their song gone off of the beautiful letdown. 

exhibit c: 

i realize this is my twitter but did you read it?! i was watching a live stream of will anderson of parachute on facebook and someone wrote in and asked who some of his favorite bands are. his first answer was switchfoot....so obviously i had to tweet about it. also, go follow my twitter, i'm hilarious.

exhibit d: 

okay, i don't actually have proof that this was influenced by switchfoot but the switchfoot vibes are so heavy i'd say it's darn near undeniable that judah & the lion also love the socal boys. 

exhibit e: 

and let's not forget when needtobreathe handpicked switchfoot to be on their very first tour de compadres tour. (i nearly died this night of sheer happiness) 

so just get on this bandwagon already and let's all get really excited for july 8th!

xo